Steers, Hugh, 1962-1995

Hugh Steers (1962–1995) was celebrated for his allegorical painting that captured the emotional and political tenor of New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the impact of queer identity and the AIDS crisis. Born in Washington, D.C., Steers studied painting at Yale University, and pursued a commitment to figuration throughout his career, cut dramatically short by AIDS at the age of 32. Influenced by historical figures of art, including Thomas Eakins, Edward Hopper, Paul Cadmus, Pierre Bonnard, and Edouard Vuillard, among others, he embraced representational painting and figuration at a time when such approaches were especially unfashionable.

Steers described his artistic perspective in an interview in September 1992: “I think I'm in the tradition of a certain kind of American artist—artists whose work embodies a certain gorgeous bleakness. Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline—they all had this austere beauty to them. They found beauty in the most brutal forms. I think that's what characterizes America, the atmosphere, its culture, its cities and landscape. They all have that soft glow of brutality.”


While embracing the polemics of identity politics through his visual content, Steers’ emotionally charged painting took a departure from the more didactic work of his peers. The last five years of his artistic practice focused on AIDS as a subject matter, drawing on community experience and mixing dreamlike allegory with figurative realism. The resulting images amplify issues of mortality and isolation, defiance and compassion. Hugh Steers’ artwork is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Denver Art Museum.

Hugh Steers (1962–1995) was born in Washington, D.C., and trained in painting at Yale University, New Haven, CT and Parsons School of Art and Design, New York, NY. Before his death at 32 from AIDS-related complications, Steers created allegorical images of everyday life that captured the emotional and political tenor of New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Embracing representational painting and figuration at a time when such approaches were deemed unfashionable, his intimate compositions are poignant symbols of life under the specter of AIDS.

Deeply influenced by art history, Steers mined the Western canon for inspiration to create intimate, surreal, and compelling paintings filled with elements that paid homage to disparate artists, including El Greco, Édouard Vuillard, Edward Hopper, and Paul Cadmus. In an interview shortly before his death, the artist expanded on his approach, musing: “I think I'm in the tradition of a certain kind of American artist—artists whose work embodies a certain gorgeous bleakness. Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline—they all had this austere beauty to them. They found beauty in the most brutal forms. I think that's what characterizes America, the atmosphere, its culture, its cities and landscape. They all have that soft glow of brutality.”

Dedicated to capturing the “soft glow of brutality,” Steers’ compositions communicate joy even in the face of despair. At the same time, by painting mundane moments imbued with a disconcerting charge, his paintings invite ambiguous narratives of mortality, defiance, and compassion. For Steers, such narratives reflected his own desires. As he explained, “I would like to be able to act or have someone care about me the way some of the people in my paintings act or care about each other. It’s as if painting it will make it become real.”

Transforming prosaic scenes and spaces into tableaux suffused with longing, loneliness, fear, and eroticism, Steers’ work inhabits a melancholy architecture of intense emotion. His images—sensuous and unsettling—gain new resonance in a contemporary art landscape informed by a return to figuration and a critical reappraisal of art from the 1980s and early 1990s.

Hugh Steers’ work was recently featured in AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism at the Museum of the City of New York, NY (2017) and Art AIDS America, curated by Jonathan Katz and Rock Hushka, at the Tacoma Art Museum, WA (2015); West Hollywood Library and One Archives Gallery and Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2015); Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA (2016); Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY (2016); and Alphawood Foundation, Chicago, IL (2016). His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2013); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY (1994); Richard Anderson, New York, NY (1992); Midtown Galleries, New York, NY (1992); Denver Art Museum, CO (1991); Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY (1988); and the Drawing Center, New York, NY (1987), among others. Steers’ work is in private and public art collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Walker Art Center, Minnesota, MN; and Denver Art Museum, CO. In 1989, Steers received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship. A comprehensive monographic catalogue of Steers’ work was published by Visual AIDS in 2015.

Hugh Auchincloss Steers (June 12, 1962 – March 1, 1995) was an American painter whose work is in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Denver Art Museum. He died of AIDS at the age of 32.[1]


Contents
1 Early life
2 Art
3 Personal life
4 Exhibitions
5 See also
6 References
Early life
Steers was born on June 12, 1962, to Nina Gore Auchincloss and Newton Steers. He was the second of three children born to his parents. Steers had two brothers, Ivan Steers the oldest and Burr Steers, the youngest, the filmmaker.[2] He attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut and graduated from Yale University in 1985. He later attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, graduating in 1991.[3]

Steers was the grandson of Hugh D. Auchincloss and Nina Gore and the great-grandson of Thomas Gore. His mother was the half-sister of writer Gore Vidal and a stepsister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. In 1974, his parents divorced and later that same year, his mother married her second husband, Michael Straight. The wedding was attended by Hugh D. Auchincloss, Janet Auchincloss, Jackie Kennedy, Renata Adler, Beatrice Straight, and Peter Cookson.[4]

Art
In 1989, Steers received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship[5] and had his first solo exhibition. He went on to exhibit his work in over 30 shows across the United States and Italy.[3]

Steers' work, primarily figurative painting, is featured in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Denver Art Museum.[1] He painted in a style that mixed dreamlike allegory with Expressionist-tinged realism and incorporated art history references. In the 1990s, his work increasingly dealt with AIDS and many of his paintings showed male figures alone nearly nude or clothed in women's attire. Steers also depicted pairs of men bathing, dressing each other, and embracing. In his final works, he painted a self-portrait of a man dressed in a white hospital gown with white high heels. The figure is shown entering the lives of other characters as both an avenging and a guardian angel.[1]

A comprehensive monographic catalogue of Steers’ work was published by Visual AIDS in 2015.[5]

Personal life
Steers was openly gay[3] and died of AIDS related complications in 1995 at the age of 32.[1]

Exhibitions
Drawing Center, New York (1987)[5]
Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY (1988)[5]
Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado (1991)[5]
Midtown Galleries, New York (1992)[5]
Richard Anderson, New York (1992)[5]
New Museum of Contemporary Art (1994)[5]
Cadmus, Steers, Warhol (2012)[5]
Art Basel Miami Beach (2012)[5]
Art Kabinett Art Basel Miami Beach History, Painting (2012)[5]
Hugh Steers, Alexander Gray Associates (2013)[6]
Hugh Steers, Whitney Museum of American Art (2013)[5]
Art AIDS America, Tacoma Art Museum (2015)[5]
Hugh Steers' Day Light Alexander Gray Associates (2015)[5]